“Of course not,” Leo says. “We didn’t come over to save you. Just the absolute level of doucheyness caught our attention.”
Ares chuckles. “I was on the same flight over with them,” he says. “Can’t say I was enjoying my first introduction to Kingmakers students.”
“Do you know anyone else coming?” I ask him curiously.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I barely know anybody. What Bram said is true—my family’s tiny and poor. Syros is tiny and poor. We’re mafia in name only. My father works as a tour guide. I only got accepted because the Cirillos have been going to Kingmakers since it was founded.”
“You’re one of the first ten families,” I say with interest.
“Yeah.” Ares shrugs. “The smallest and least impressive, though.”
“Who gives a fuck!” I say. “That’s still cool!”
“Anna loves history,” Leo tells him. “She probably knows more about Kingmakers than the rest of us combined.”
“No, I don’t,” I correct him. “I’ve never even seen it, and I’m sure some of the other kids have.”
“Anyway, tell us more about Syros,” Leo says.
“It really isn’t very interesting,” Ares says, taking an enormous bite out of a spinach pastry. “Just a little Greek island. Not as pretty as Mykonos or Santorini. You said you two were from Chicago?”
“Yeah.” Leo nods proudly. He loves Chicago more than any place on earth.
“Have you ever been there?” I ask Ares.
“I hadn’t even been on a plane before today,” he admits.
I can’t help laughing at that. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” he says, smiling a little. He has a nice smile—slow and warm. I think Ares is a gentle giant. I like him immediately, though I don’t know how gentleness will fare where we’re about to go.
“There must be something cool in Syros,” Leo says, spearing a huge chunk of beef and stuffing it in his mouth.
“Well, I really do have a whole farm full of goats,” Ares says. “But not for what Bram said. They’re fainting goats. If you startle them, they stiffen up like a board and keel over. It’s kind of adorable.”
“Do you have siblings?” I ask him.
“Two brothers and a sister. I’m the oldest. I feel bad for leaving them . . .”
“Me too,” I say.
We talk about our siblings for a few minutes, and I can see Leo looking mildly jealous. He always says he wishes he had a brother, but I don’t know how he’d actually handle that, since Leo loves to be the center of attention at all times.
The waiter carries away our rapidly emptying plates, then brings out chilled dishes of rožata, which is some sort of custard pudding. Bram and his buddies got bored and left, so there’s no one throwing unpleasant sneers in our direction anymore. We drink several cups of sweet, fruity brandy, the sky darkening and the ancient stone walls glowing from the row of lanterns all along the sea wall. The night air is fragrant with orange blossoms and sea salt.
Leo and I get a bit tipsy, pleased to finally be in a country with a reasonable drinking age. Ares relaxes too, though he’s not drinking as much as we are. It’s funny that he’s named after the god of war. There’s nothing aggressive about him. In fact, without the candlelight brightening his face, I think he’d look sad and anxious. He’s probably nervous about sailing off to Kingmakers tomorrow, as we all are.
“Let’s get another round!” Leo says, finishing his brandy.
“The boat comes at seven in the morning,” I remind him.
“All the more reason to stay up all night,” Leo says. “I hate getting up early.”
“Your logic is impeccable,” I say drily.
“Come on,” Leo coaxes me.
I look over at Ares, who doesn’t seem to mind the idea of another drink.
“Alright,” I say. “Just one more . . .”
4
Leo
“LEO!” Anna shouts, yanking off my blanket and dragging me out of the bed so my ass bumps on the floor.
The impact makes my skull throb. I don’t know what the fuck was in that brandy last night, but I’m experiencing a hell of a hangover. The bright Mediterranean sunshine streaming in through the window is about ten times more cheerful than I want to experience at the moment. I’d much rather plunge back into the lovely dark silence of a huge pile of blankets over my head.
“What are you doing?” I groan, shaking the hair out of my eyes.
“We’re supposed to be boarding in ten minutes! Didn’t you hear me banging on your door?”
“Anna,” I grumble. “Can you do me a favor? Can you please just . . . shush? You’re so loud . . .”
“GET UP!” she hollers, making my head ring like a bell. “WE’RE GONNA MISS THE BOAT!”
“Okay, Jesus,” I say, picking myself up off the floor.
Anna thrusts a glass of lukewarm tap water into my hand, and I chug it down. It tastes weird, as water always does in a foreign place. My stomach churns.
“How come you’re not hungover?” I ask her.
“Because I didn’t drink as much as you,” she says.
“But I’m twice as big as you. I should be able to drink twice as much.”
“Good hypothesis—how’s the field test working out for you?”
“Not great,” I admit.
I fell asleep in my clothes. I pull my dirty t-shirt over my head, and then unbutton my jeans and drop them down. Anna turns around quickly, facing the door.
“You’ve seen me naked before,” I tease her. “And I’ve seen you . . .”
“Not in a long time,” Anna says coolly.
We used to go skinny dipping together in Carlyle Lake, Anna skinny and pale no matter how late it was in the summer, and me brown as a nut. But it’s true, we were only kids at the time. I haven’t actually seen Anna nude since she . . . well . . . filled out . . .
“How’d you get in here anyway?” I ask her. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t drunk enough to forget to bolt the door.
“I picked the lock,” she says. “It’s hardly Fort Knox.”
Anna is an encyclopedia of hidden skills. I’ve long since learned not to compete with her on random tasks. At least, not with any confidence of whether or not I’ll win.
I’m heading to the shower when Anna shouts, “We don’t have time for that!”
“Okay, okay,” I grumble, rifling through my duffle bag. I stare stupidly at the clothes, realizing that it’s almost all white dress shirts, gray or black trousers, charcoal sweater vests, and sage-green pullovers.
Fucking uniforms. I forgot about that.
Grabbing items at random, I put on a white button-up and a pair of gray slacks, both horribly wrinkled from being stuffed in my bag without proper folding. I rake my fingers through my hair, give my teeth a five-second brush, rub on some deodorant and a spritz of cologne, and in less than two minutes I’m ready to go.
“With time to spare,” I say to Anna.